At present, my healing corps consists of the following: 2 Priests, 4 Druids, 2 Paladins, and 2 Shamans. Note that both 1 Druid and 1 Shaman are on a part time rotation. I figure thatÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s more than enough to handle any sort of outages or benches that need to occur.

But a few nights ago, I received an in game mail from one of my Paladins. LetÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s call him Wayne.

Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hey Matt, IÃ¢â‚¬â„¢ve decided to take a break from WoW until Ulduar comes out. IÃ¢â‚¬â„¢ve gotten what I need to prepare myself for it and I donÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t want to burn myself too early. Thanks for understanding.Ã¢â‚¬Â

The feeling I experienced after reading his in game mail could only be described as Ã¢â‚¬Å“disappointmentÃ¢â‚¬Â. Here was a player that had showed up to all of the raids we asked him to do before the holiday break. He was one of the earliest healers we had in the guild. For a time, he was the only Holy Paladin we had in our raids as our other one wasnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t ready to go yet.

Perhaps in this aspect, Loot Council may have failed as we awarded him nearly all the spell power plate gear until our second Paladin was able to join us.

The alternative would have been to shard upgrades to keep him coming for more. My guild and my friends would know that I would never consider that as an option.

Skepticism

HmmÃ¢â‚¬Â¦ – I shouldnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t have to question the motives of my raiders. My experience in the game has taught me that there are some legitimate excuses for going on a hiatus and some that make you raise your eyebrow and go Ã¢â‚¬Å“really?Ã¢â‚¬Â. This is one of those times. I wouldÃ¢â‚¬â„¢ve been more than happy to accept a temporary leave of absence if a player was going out of town. Life does happen and thereÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s nothing I can do to change that (nor would I).

Conquest is now able to effectively clear out all heroic level content in the game.

Actually, we took down Sarth with 2 drakes up tonight.

And weÃ¢â‚¬â„¢re able to do this within 6 hours. I intentionally split this into 2 days of 3 hour raid nights to avoid wear and tear on my troops.

Short term effects

Newsflash – This reduced our number of active healers down to 6 but I plan to rotate the other 2 healers I have on standby as needed. Both myself and my other Priest were both deep Holy. After some consultations and careful consideration, I decided to join Vonya and respec Discipline myself. This means I have to toss out the 16 Spirit gems in my blues and replace them with some Intellect heavy gems (Dazzling Forest Emerald although I probably shouldÃ¢â‚¬â„¢ve used SeerÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s Forest Emerald instead, but alas the AH doesnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t always have what you need).

The impact this has on our healer corps is the fact that we are back up to having 2 solid tank healers who are myself and a Holy Paladin. We still have a strong supplement of Resto Druids, Shamans, and another CoH Priest to maintain raid wide heals.

Long term effects

We are down to 1 Holy Paladin. ThatÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s 1 less set of blessings and auras among other things. I know for the time being I am willing to stand pat on my corps. But I would not be against the idea of recruiting another Holy Paladin for part time purposes. IÃ¢â‚¬â„¢ve spoken with several around the server, but theyÃ¢â‚¬â„¢re all interested in a full time raiding and starting position. ThatÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s not something I can promise. I donÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t want to say one thing only for them to switch over and find out that I failed to deliver. I try to maintain a record of meaning what I say.

As for Wayne, IÃ¢â‚¬â„¢m not going to think about any actions for the present. Those are his choices to make and I have to react accordingly. I canÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t help but feel anything else but disappointment right now.

To me, itÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s just another day behind the desk.

PS Ã¢â‚¬â€œ If youÃ¢â‚¬â„¢re a Holy Paladin looking for for a home and not expecting a lot of raiding hours, get in touch with me.

Epic

About me

My name is Matticus and this is my World of Warcraft blog. Here you can read about my thoughts regarding healing as a priest. As a former guild master, I also write about guild and raid related topics. The blog has expanded to include thoughts from other regular contributors. The aim of this blog is to help you grow and improve. My unending goal is to have something relevant and useful in every post. or more, you can check out my columns on Blizzard Watch. Visit theGuildmasters to talk shop with other GMs, raid leaders, and officers. My current guild is on Kel'Thuzad US.